7. The first state is the state which precedes, both the state existing from earliest childhood onwards and that existing immediately before regeneration; and it is called a void, emptiness, and thick darkness. And the first movement, which is the Lord's mercy, is 'the Spirit of God hovering over the face ¹ of the waters'.

Footnotes:

1965. This then is the internal sense of the details in this chapter concerning Abram, Hagar, and Ishmael. Yet how inexhaustible that sense is, that is, how limitless the details it contains, may be seen from the single consideration that, as every single thing in the Word looks in the internal sense to the Lord and has the Lord as its subject, the life of the Word, being the Word itself, arises out of this. In addition every single thing has at the same time in the internal sense the Lord's kingdom in heaven as its subject, and also His kingdom on earth, which is the Church. And in a similar way it has as its subject each individual who has the Lord's kingdom within him, besides having in general everything celestial or spiritual as its subject. For the Lord is the source of all these things, and this accounts for Abram's also representing the celestial Church, the celestial man, as well as the celestial itself, and so on. To extend the explanation any further however would take much too long.